In fact, Steve Job’s WWDC 2007 launch, his “one more thing” for iPhone was that you could develop and distribute apps, web apps with icons using iPhone APIs: W

In fact, Steve Job’s WWDC 2007 launch, his “one more thing” for iPhone was that you could develop and distribute apps, web apps with icons using iPhone APIs: Web 2.0 + AJAX, integrate w/ iPhone services, instant distribution, easy to update, secure ... Apple originally intended the iPhone to be open in this way, for HTML5 apps you’d get from anywhere. Similar to Palm Pre, and other devices of the time. There was no “app store”. For a while after the app store, even the “native” apps toyed with being really just HTML5 apps in a wrapper (e.g. Facebook famously went that way before eventually going back). Those HTML5 app features have gotten better, not worse, but its almost as though devs haven’t ever seen or tried this approach. This 2018 Medium article talks about how really “It’s been PWA all along”. Note that as time passes, more native API access is brought through securely, not less: As of 2018: https://medium.com/@firt/progressive-web-apps-on-ios-are-here-d00430dee3a7 https://medium.com/@firt/progressive-web-apps-on-ios-are-her... And as of 2021: https://firt.dev/pwa-2021/ https://firt.dev/pwa-2021/ That’s a somewhat anti-Apple take. Going back to the beginning, you can already see Apple struggling with implications of native API vs. openness. See this October 2007 open letter from Steve Jobs: “[We] were trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once — provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones — this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.” https://www.imore.com/history-app-store-year-zero https://www.imore.com/history-app-store-year-zero As you watch these features release over a decade, this concept seems still in Apple’s DNA — they generally seem to continue to aim to reconcile that balancing act and not provide access until satisfied w/ compromises being made. If you’re in a position of Parler, aiming for a non-family-friendly space, you may be better off making compromises of your own so you are not dependent on Apple or Google’s curated experiences, you can access the same audience directly.